Yaza

0:00Welcome to the Emerging Brands Podcast. Sharing the stories behind brands you'll want to shop next. I'm your host, Kelly Bennett. I am a New York City-based brand strategist for CPG Food and Beverage Brands. In each episode, I'll take you behind the scenes of founders that are building better-for-you products and bringing them to market. it. Also, I talk to brand builders, retailers, industry experts, and tastemakers who help bring those cool products to your shopping cart. You will hear stories of real-life founders, their launch strategies, and practical advice you could use to grow your own brand or simply discover what's next on shelf.

0:42And the best part is you could shop all the brands featured on the show. This podcast is brought to you by Glimpse. Glimpse is an AI powered deduction management tool that disputes and recovers invalid deductions, winning brands, thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours back to founders so that they can focus on what really matters most. If you're a brand selling in retail, go to tryglimpse.com backslash trial for 30 days free and let them know I sent you. Now let's dive into the new episode. Hi everyone. Welcome back to a new episode of Emerging Brands Podcast with Kelly Bennett. The brand that I'm going to bring on the podcast today has been on my radar.

1:31They recently went through a rebrand and I absolutely love their packaging. I love how they are positioned in retail. And so when I saw this opportunity come across my desk, it was an easy yes. Kareem Khalil is here. He is the founder of Yaza. And Kareem, I'm so happy to have you on the show today. Kaylee, thank you for having me on. You're so welcome. To kick off the conversation, I want to cover all the things with you because, Again, I've been following the brand and how you've been growing, but I first want to start off with what did you see as the opportunity in the grocery store? You have a Labna brand, and what were you seeing shift as more American consumers are learning about Labna or more people willing to taste new things?

2:24I would love to see from your point of view what was happening in the market that really was a light bulb moment for Yaza. Yeah. So Kelly, I moved to the U.S. around five years ago. Oh, OK. Prior to that, I would visit the U.S. regularly on holidays. I grew up around Europe for most of my life. And everywhere I went, that grocery aisle was missing something. So I saw the hummus growing, growing and growing. But I felt the rest of my Mediterranean diet that I grew up eating was missing on those shelves. So I saw that opportunity right there. And we started with Labneh because I think Labneh wasn't even available in the mainstream market.

3:01At the time, it was only available in the ethnic stores. And unfortunately, the quality of that Labneh was not what I was used to. I couldn't eat it. I had to make it at home. So I just wanted to make something easy, simple for consumers like me who wanted the real Labneh at their local grocery store. So that was kind of the aha moment, the dream that started Yeza. And when was that? So I moved in 2020 in the middle of COVID. I didn't know. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do yet. I would spend, I had a passion for food. I worked in CPG in the past, but nothing to do with food. And we can talk about that if you want later.

3:38But I've always had a dream of changing that food landscape, of giving better quality food, real homemade foods to the average consumer who does not have that experience, to have him travel with food. Because food is about experience. It's not just feeding yourself. Right. It's learning a culture. It's traveling by eating. And I've always wanted to do that, especially with things I got used to. So when I moved here, it took me a year and a half to kind of start. I rented an office. It's a co-working space. It was a closet. I called it an office. They called it an office, but it was literally a closet.

4:11Yes. We're in our fourth space since. Our new space is 20, 30 times bigger than that first one. So we grew very quickly. We hit retail two and a half years ago. and we're now in over 2 ,000 doors nationally. Incredible. So you said that you have worked in CPG in the past, but not in food. Can you walk me through your background of your career and then what made you want to really take the leap, even though you've had the idea, and I'm sure so many people have had the idea of wanting to start a food brand, but actually taking that next step to do it is a whole other ballgame. So I would love to hear more of your background before becoming a founder.

4:55So Kelly, I was born in Geneva. Okay. Grew up in France, went to high school in Lebanon, went to college in the UK, and then took over the family business in Nigeria. Wow. So real global citizen. So global citizen. And that's where food was traveling within my life. I was looking for my food everywhere I went. And I had to make it myself. And that's kind of, I learned how to, how to do it. and in nigeria i took over the family business it was a hair extension weaves and braids factory interesting it was cpg but nothing to do with the u.s or with food right and i fell in love with cpg i love you know i have a lot of my family in construction real estate it takes four or five years to build a tower or building or project and that's just too boring i like things going fast and cpg you can innovate and create so quickly right you can see it like you do something you go to the store, you see it.

5:48It's like, it's such, it's hard to describe. It's such a beautiful thing to just walk into a store and see your product on the shelf. There is that, it's not even necessarily instant gratification because really behind the scenes, we know it does take time, but you're right. There's like this electric feeling when you know that you worked on a product and then you see it on shelf and then you see people you don't know shopping it. It's like the coolest feeling. I have clients now coming to retail and it's like the coolest thing to see them in the wild. I'm not supposed to say that, but sometimes I stalk those people and I kind of want to find out like, where do you hear about it?

6:25Where do you see it? How do you use it? It's because it's, you know, I know how I, I, we promote, but it's nice to see someone like, you know, random person just buying it at the checkout cashier and, and, and paying for a product. It's, it's the, like you said, the gratification. That's the best market research there is. So what made you then take the leap and really moving to the US, especially during COVID, that was just a wild time in general, but to say, okay, I'm also going to start a CPG food business, something that you hadn't done before. What did those first initial steps look like? So it all started with a dream.

7:04I had a dream of launching an avenue company. It was COVID and I had to start somewhere. I couldn't just waste it here and wait. We kept, I kept delaying the ideas and I had, I had like 10 different ideas for different food products. Leaveney was always the top, but Leaveney was like the hardest, probably out of the most challenging out of the other items. And I just had to start somewhere. So I took that office space and I sat there and I started researching because I know how to make Leaveney at home, but then how do you make it? How do you industrialize it? And I started looking for a factory for sale.

7:36I initially thought I was going to buy a factory and produce it myself, which obviously I didn't do it. And that's good I didn't do it. And I found a factory that went bankrupt. So I contacted the person in Atlanta. His name is Ron, and he's now kind of a co-founder, partner of us. And he still works with us, and he does all the R &D. And I called him in, and he's like, you're crazy. Don't do it. Don't go to CPG. That's the stupidest idea I'll ever do. I'm like, Ron, don't worry about it. Let me do it. You know, just do what you have to do, and let me figure out the rest. And it was a year and a half of hard work.

8:12You know, we had to find co-packers. I went through thousands and thousands of different co-packers calling, emailing, and it took seven or eight months just to get a call back because no one wants to work with a startup. No one, you know. Right, it's really hard. It's really hard to find that right match. Especially for dairy and especially for grade A. Yeah. It has to be very specialized. And they have to be the right size to accept working with us. Right. So what was that unlocked to find the right partner for manufacturing? So there's something called the AMS list, which basically is the FDA, the qualified people who are allowed to ship outside their own states.

8:54So I went through that list, starting from East Coast to West Coast. I got all the way to the West Coast. Over three or four months of just calling, emailing. And then I got a call back from one of the East Coast, upstate New York, where, in my opinion, that's the best milk. And they call me back and they're like, we got your voicemail three months ago and we lost one of our clients, sold his company. So they moved out. We have space. Let's talk. I'm like, you know, I was going to give up. I was I was you know, I was like done. I'm like, that's not going to work. We got to a point where we work with a university.

9:27I'm like, maybe we can start in their local lab with students. And I'm like, that's not that's not going to make you make a company out of it. And it was a hard process. And in life, you work hard, but luck is part of it. And you have to make your own luck. You're not going to sit there and it's not going to come to you. But if you work hard and you get luck, things can go your way. Very cool. So you said that you went into retail two and a half years ago, which is not that long ago. I know in entrepreneur years, I always say this, it's like 10 years, right? Of just like being in the trenches day to day, but two and a half years ago, it's not that long ago.

10:07And you said you're in 2000 doors now. Yeah. That's incredible. So what did that look like of fairly rapid, I would say, expansion into retail, right? What was that strategy and what was helping you start to keep up with this growing demand? So Kelly, when I started, I didn't know anything. And I think that's a good thing. You know, you want to know more, but it played to our part where I didn't know anything. I'm like, like, where do I start? I signed up for a trade show when I had kitchen lab samples, not even like final samples. We showed up to a trade show. We started meeting retailers and they're like, once you're ready, once you have a co-packer, call us and we'll be interested.

10:51And September of 2023 is when we had our first production run. I found a local produce distributor local to Atlanta. And I used to put products in the back of my car and drive from local stores here and try to get it in on shelf. and that's kind of how we started now at the same time there was a trade show expo east that was the last expo east yes and i submitted for a meeting with whole foods for local regional whatever you know to meet the local team and i met with a local person and he looked at me and he said what's your capacity and i said i i can go as much as you want he's like can you go nationwide and i said yes so then he got in the the nationwide the the global they call her the global buyer was there at the show he called her in and because we had a separate meeting room at the show and she looked at me and she said she started asking questions and she tried the product and she's like can you do nationwide and i said yes she's like are you sure and i'm like yes i am sure and then i go back to my team and they're like crazy i go back to my co-packers like there's no way just tell them you can only do 100 stores i'm like i'm sorry it's too late we get that chance in life you have to make it and we spent and obviously whole foods gives you time for the launch so we had a few months to get it ready but we start producing and producing and producing scanning up because we didn't have you know we just had started the testing um at the plant we didn't have production were you able to stay at the same manufacturer as you were ramping up so yes and we're still with them they're amazing so they had that capacity they do that's okay And they have more capacity for us as we grow and as we scale.

12:35Incredible. Because that is really amazing luck too. And I'm saying luck because that's what you were referring to, that you found a manufacturer that was willing to take a chance on an emerging brand and also has the capability to scale with you to ramp up. That's a very unique find. And they are growing. So we're lucky that they're investing in their plans. So they're growing. They're doubled. Amazing. From last year, they're building an extra plant or they're just doubling the size of the plant, which is good for us as we grow more space for us. Because that's a part of nuance too for CPG of you could get that, hey, we want to have you nationwide.

13:17But if you don't have the right manufacturing partner, that really can stop you in your tracks. And so I want to emphasize to people listening who are an emerging barren fan, This is an outlier of what usually happens. So the fact that you knew that in your back pocket, your manufacturer had that capability, did that help you confidently say yes? Like what also helped you? That was the only reason I said yes. Okay, just to give someone who's brand new some context. That was the reason I said yes. The reason why my team was pushing against it was not capacity, but it was like, we've never produced such a big batch.

13:59Fair. And because it's a very, you know, it's a very special product. It's not done before. They've never done it before. They wanted to scale up slowly. So what we had to do is we had to make mock-up production and just donate it to food banks and donate to people just because we needed to make sure we can scale up. And we made mistakes. We lost a lot of product. We kept making mistakes until we got it right. And actually, my first delivery, that product was not up to my standard. it. It was good. I just didn't like it. I'm like, that's going to garbage. I'm sorry, we just donated. It's edible.

14:33It's good. But it's not Yaza standard, what we look for. And they're like, no, that's perfect. I'm like, I'm sorry, that's not going to Whole Foods. You get that one chance with consumers and you can't mess it up. Totally. So what is that standard for Yaza that you wanted to make sure hit that mark? So Labneh, and I don't know if you're familiar with Labneh. I am, yes. And the reason why we started the Labneh company is like no Labneh in the US is made the way we would make it back home, which is 100 % straining it and not adding any thickeners or preservative. And once you do it, the problem with that, because it's a very fragile product, it separates, it gets watery more because it's very natural.

15:11There's nothing added to it. Right. I can add a thickener or powder. It's cheaper and it will make it very thick and I won't worry about it. But I wanted to keep that standard of nothing added to it, keeping it to the standard of tasting like home. And back in Lebanon, they back strain, they still back strain the product. They don't use machines because that's the easier way of doing it. That process is not allowed in the US. And that's why other companies have went through that shortcut. And by figuring it out on our own, we are the only people who know how to do it that way. And that's kind of one of the advantages we have versus the other companies.

15:50Interesting. So now that you're in 2 ,000 doors, you've launched now nationwide in Whole Foods. Was your rebrand also pairing up with that launch in Whole Foods or did that come after you were on shelf in Whole Foods? So after we were on shelf with Whole Foods and we're doing well, and after we were probably and around 1 ,000, 1 ,500 doors. We just did a rebrand back in January this year. Oh, okay. So I thought so. I saw that shift and I was like, ooh, I really like this packaging. So as we grew as a company, I was kind of looking at the whole, because I spent a lot of time on that shelf, kind of understanding the shelf and talking to different buyers and seeing where the gap in the market is.

16:33Once you're in, it makes it easier because then you're in, you talk to different people in the industry, you talk to different buyers, you understand a little bit more the market, you understand consumers. And I realized that it's not only Lebanon that's missing, it's everything but hummus. And that's kind of how we pitch. Because there's a lot of good hummus brands. There's a lot of hummus. You go to an average grocery store, more than half of it is just hummus, hummus, hummus, 12 SKUs per brand, six, seven brands on average per retailers. But everything else was missing. And there's so many other good foods.

17:05So obviously hummus is so good, but there's so many other foods that I like to consume and consumers would like that are missing on that shelf. So we launched a baba ganoush back in October. I was going to say a baba ganoush, I feel like would play really nicely right here. So that's what recently launched? That launched back in October. We launched a muhammara. So muhammara launched in October as well. I don't know if you're familiar with muhammara. It's my favorite Yaza product. I haven't tried that yet. It's a product that I have never given it to anyone to try. And they said they didn't like it.

17:36It's like, it's magic. It's our, you know, it's very high quality. It's red pepper and walnut. Okay, that's what I was going to ask you. What is the actual ingredients? Okay, red pepper and walnut. Yes, and pomegranate molasses. So it gives it that sweet and sour, earthy taste. It's really interesting flavor. And I'm not, maybe I'm not supposed to say my marketing team is going to kill me, but we are recently launching a tzatziki. Ooh, amazing. And again, there's no tzatziki in the market that uses 100 % Greek yogurt. There's a lot of, you know, canola oil-based, mayonnaise-based, mix of milk powders and everything.

18:18We're the only one that's 100 % Greek yogurt-based the way it's supposed to be. And we've added a twist, a Lebanese twist, because tzatziki is Greek, but we've added a Lebanese twist to it because we have our own tzatziki. We call it something else. So we've kind of created that fusion between them. and it's really exciting. Very cool. We love an exclusive sneak peek. So was that part of the rebrand of just helping the brand be able to launch more SKUs in different categories to then create a whole world of Yaza? That's how it started. So when we were starting to design Babak Nuj and Mohamara, it just didn't work.

19:00The brand itself didn't work and we went to a designer and we didn't plan to do a rebrand initially. And the designers slowly, you know, kind of convinced us and they were right. And I tell everyone, a lot of people ask me, do you recommend a rebrand? If a rebrand solves a problem, yes. So what we did is we wrote, what are the current problems? What are the current packaging? We had plenty. We put the top five. The rebrand has to solve the top five. If it does, then you do it. And what were those solves that you were looking for? So one, nothing was showing. we had too much information right so you go on shelf i personally know i knew i would i would travel let's say to houston and i know we're in that whole foods i would walk into the store it would take me 10 minutes to find it so if you're saying if i couldn't find it in in the store i know the product is going to be on shelf how can i expect a consumer that has three seconds or six seconds walking the aisle to get that that you know quick um vision to see it and i had family members i had friends texting me like we can't find it are you sure yaza is that store so that was problem number one problem number two is we had too much information we're attending too much and by studying the island stores we realized that consumers who want to know more can go to your website and can get all that information no one's going to spend 10 minutes in the grocery store start reading sentences and paragraphs yes so that was a mistake we did initially The logo wasn't showing enough.

20:30I don't know if you saw the old logo. We had a swirl, which was taking half of the space. So we took that away and we kind of used it elsewhere. And that space is being more fun and more modern. We wanted to be part of that fun and modern. It felt more modern in the rebrand too. And more accessible. Right. And more inviting. You know, we want to invite you first, try it, and then we can educate you on what it is and what to do with it. But just try it. That's what we want. We want the part of, you know, come to my house, try this before telling you all the information about what's happening and what kind of who else is coming and, you know, what time the party starts, et cetera.

21:09Right, exactly. And I think that's a really good piece of advice, which was my next question for an emerging brand founder. People get so excited, especially when it's rooted in their culture or a personal story or a personal solve. They want to communicate every ounce of that to a consumer. And it's something that as a brand strategist for pre-launch CPG food and beverage brands, I always have to wheel people in of like, yes, we could talk about the things, but we really have to be strategic with when and where and how that then leads into design of knowing what are the most important differentiators you need to just catch people's attention with.

21:52The most important thing to your point, them actually trying it, then they could deeper dive. So thank you for emphasizing that because I know so many emerging brand founders have a really hard time with that, which is understandable. It's your passion. It's something you're putting out into the world, But knowing that cadence is a really powerful unlock to getting someone to get it off the shelf. I agree. And what we tend to do, and that's a mistake we did, you want to be everything for everyone. Right. And that's not possible. It's not. And I think one of the advice I would have to anyone is using a brand strategist pre-launch.

22:31So for me, the mistake was, let's not use one. We'll figure it out later. And maybe it was the right thing at the time. But if I had to do it again, I would get someone because now we got a brand strategist that helps us reposition the brand to make sure that we're not everything for everyone. But then eventually everyone will come on their own as you grow. Well, thank you for saying that. And I'm not I didn't even know you were going to give a shout out to brand strategist. But I really again, I'm a brand strategist, so I'm emphasizing this. But this is something I really want to have on the radar for an emerging brand founder because even most founders who haven't been in this space or have started a brand before don't even know about brand strategy.

23:13It's not one of those things that is as obvious of like, okay, I know I'm going to need a logo. I know that I'm going to need packaging. I need to have a product to put in the container. But to your point of understanding really the positioning of your product and where it's going to grow from just your initial launch as much pre-launch as possible, but also knowing when to bring in the experts to help you, especially during a rebrand is also a great time to make those adjustments. I agree. Another advice I would have to any founders is make CPG friends. You know, we're cool people. It's not an industry where you have like uncool people, all the CPG founders or people working in CPG are fun and cool to be around.

23:57Make CPG friends, talk to them. Some may be more advanced and know more. You can learn from them, but some may be less and you can teach them. Because I feel there's so much to learn. And a lot of mistakes that I've done, I could have avoided had I talked to people. And I've avoided so many mistakes as well because I've talked to people. So I think that's a big advice. I always tell that to anyone going into CPG. I get a lot of messages and I'm like, talk to as many people as possible. Don't rely on me. I may tell you something that may work for you, may not work for you, but ask other people as well.

24:30That's a great piece of advice. Do you think in the early days, and again, I like to give context to the really early stage people who are just starting to take a product idea and take action on it. Do you think in the early days it was maybe intimidating to meet other people in the CPG space because you were still coming up with the product or maybe didn't feel like a quote unquote real founder yet of this brand? And what was an unlock for you to just start getting more comfortable reaching out to more people in CPG food and beverage? I did a lot of that on LinkedIn. I did that in trade shows that would just show up.

25:07You have a lot of good ones that actually answer nice. You have a lot of ones who kind of don't take you seriously because you're like some kid or some guy who's just starting from scratch. They don't take you seriously. Funny enough, one of them, now that we've grown so much, came back and wants to connect and wants to be friends. Isn't that such a satisfying feeling? It's like, oh, okay. Now I'm literally doing that. I made sure to make him wait and to apply to him just because, you know. And we partnered with one of their competitors to do different, you know, collabs. And I told my team, we're not going to work with him for any collabs.

25:46Fair enough. Fair enough. You have to have your own boundaries. And I'm a big relationship person, though I really like clear boundaries. I think that the way that you manage relationships, even when you're super early on, is such a tell for how you're going to build a business in the long run. 100%. Especially when you're building a business for consumers. Yes. You have to be... You have to. Well, I guess if you're not that person, maybe CPG is not for you. Versus you have to try and be... If you have to force yourself to be nice, then you're in the wrong business, wrong industry. Or if you don't really like people.

26:28You know, like there's just some people who don't like to talk to other people, which is totally fine. CPG, food and beverage, I think even food and beverage should niche down even more. You have to have those types of relationship building moments because you're like, to your point, you're talking with consumers. They're going to be literally eating and drinking your products. You need to be able to have those relationships. People are picky with what they put in their mouth. It's not like trying to look at this T-shirt and, you know, you can see if it looks nice or not or attention. It's like food, something you put inside.

27:00You know, if you don't trust a person, you don't trust the taste, you're not going to try it. Right. Great point. I could talk to you for hours and I really appreciate your time and generosity of sharing behind the scenes of Yaza. Last question. I know 2 ,000 stores. What's the best way for people to see if Yaza is in a retailer by them? The best bet is Whole Foods Nationwide. Cool. The other thing I would recommend is go on our website, yeah, the foods.com and check the store locator. It tells you because we have different items in different stores. So if you put in your zip code, it will tell you which in your radius, which kind of what items are available to you.

27:37And we're adding a lot of more stores in the next couple of months. So keep looking on that website and figure it out. Incredible. More items, more to come. big congratulations what you've accomplished in a relatively short time is really impressive and i really again appreciate you sharing your great insight advice and just um everything that you've built been building it's in my refrigerator right now so thank you again one last thing is i want people to follow their gut and dream don't let people put you down you're going to go to people and they're going to tell you no they're crazy don't do it don't do that if you believe in it You live once, do it.